


Finding Home

by Cucuxumusu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Assasins, Cool castles, Fae & Fairies, King Kidd, M/M, Tired Law, Trials, True Mates, soulmates tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cucuxumusu/pseuds/Cucuxumusu
Summary: Trafalgar Law, assasin at the service of the crown, has crossed a cursed wasteland where no one has set foot for centuries, to kill Kidd, the last King of the Fae. However, to achieve his purpose he must use all his inteligence and cunning to avoid falling into the traps and games of the Fae. Will the King believe his tricks? What will happen when ancient traditions and legends resurface?
Relationships: Eustass Kid & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Eustass Kid/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Comments: 20
Kudos: 51
Collections: KidLaw Exchange 2020





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [op-sheepy (opsheepy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opsheepy/gifts).



> It has been years since I had writen anything for KidLaw, but I guess 2020 is that kind of a year. Op-Sheepy, dear, I know you wanted high fantasy, but in a one-shot and with only one month to write, there is so much I can do, and I belive this is more in the fansasy general side. In any case I hope you enjoy and have a wonderfull Chritsmas and an even happier new year. 
> 
> From your secret santa's friend n3n.

The ground under Law’s dark hunting boots was bare. No grass, no fallen leaves, not even dust or dirt, just stripped and blackened volcanic rock that went on for miles and miles in all directions around him. Law stopped, and for a moment just looked at the landscape feeling uneasy despite his best efforts. Being used to live in a land of pure unbroken green, this place seemed discomforting and unnatural. A completely cursed and abandoned land where nothing grew.

There had been a few black burned trees here and there as his journey progressed, carcases and skeletons of what once had been huge forests but that had perished under some kind of cataclysm. There was also the rolling fog and brumes that hid shadows and strange shapes, and that kept putting him on edge whenever he had to pass through them. Eerie and creepily silent, with no sign of life.

Law now understood why the people never set foot in this place, and why the legends had risen among the common folk about this place. The place wasn’t any sort of natural phenomenon. This black spot that stretched for miles in the middle of their green and lush kingdom, was the last trace of a race that was supposed to have been banished from their world centuries ago. A last spark that Law was supposed to eradicate.

Pulling his cape around him in a futile effort to keep some warmth from the cold fog and unwelcoming terrain, Law kept on walking this death paramo with no real reference to follow nor any idea where exactly he was among it all. There were no stars to follow at night under the mantle of dark clouds, and no map had been known of this part of the kingdom since no one had been brave enough to disturb its sole resident.

The last King of the Fae was said to live among this dead realm. The Dark King of the paramo. The devil incarnate. Law remembered with a pang in his heart, the stories his mother had sang and told him when he had been but a baby in their little healer’s hut. She had loved to tell him about the immortal race, the adventures and love stories so different from their own world. The Dark King of the Fae had been a recruiting character in all of them, sometimes a villain, other’s the rightful punisher, but always scary. Law had heard a hundred version of those stories since then, whispered over war campfires or in the taverns of the capital, but the main idea didn’t seem to change over much from mouth to mouth.

Eustass Kidd, rightful King of the black paramo, last Kind of the Fae and sovereign of the Dark-Fae, was not supposed to be a nice person.

He was also not supposed to live for longer than a week. Law’s mission had been simple and concise: he was to kill the legendary man -- _in case_ _he did exist--_ so Doflamingo and his knights could reclaim the land and unify the kingdom under one sole banner. However, the fact that the man was supposed to be the last one of the Fae, a race of powerful immortals that had once ruled the world but that now was almost extinct, hadn’t made Doflamingo flinch. But why would he? He was a king and a powerful one, he just seeked more and more power for himself. It was a fact that Law had learned in the worst possible way. Protesting and resisting such men’s orders was useless, arguing with them was even more dangerous. Currently, Law just accepted his missions and didn’t let himself think twice. An assassin’s job was never meant to be easy.

And so, he had obeyed the king’s order, and had gone into cursed and dangerous land to kill another monarch. He has kept on walking since then not daring to stop. Over black ground and among fog and a broken landscape.

He tried to remember his mother voice, her stories about the Fae, and the warning she had told him all those years ago, but the memories were bloodied and way to painful even a decade after her death, and so Law quickly gave up. They were just folk stories after all. Myths and legends. They were not supposed to be real; no one had seen a Fae for decades, mermaids had vanished deep into the ocean, the trolls had left the mountains. There was no magic left in the world, only the shadow of humans. Law would probably find a deserted land, with no king, no palace and no twisted trial waiting for him. In a week he would just go back to the court without having found anything, and another legend would end.

Just as he was dismissing the whole story, the fog around him cleared, and two big statues appeared in front of him from out of nowhere, huge and looming over him several meters tall in the air. Law instinctively went for the dagger at his hip, an almost unconscious gesture that had saved him many times.

The two stone statues in front of him however didn’t move an inch of their stony bodies.

They portrayed two warriors in full armour, the design elegant and a work of art that would put any human sculptor to shame. Their faces were handsome, their hair blowing in an invisible air behind pointed ears. Fae. They each held two curved elegant swords and were pointing them towards the other figure, as if prepared to strike the last blow on a fight. Between them, on the ground, there was the mouth of a cavern, dark and endless, with a set of stairs that disappeared down below the land.

Law cursed. Then rolled his eyes disgusted. Fae and their dramatics, apparently that part had been real on the stories. His mother would laugh her ass off, and his father will shake his head at the whole monstrosity. Law however only grimaced at the path he had to follow.

He hadn’t brought any kind of light or torch to illuminate his way down to the bowels of the earth, but unsheathing his sword, Kikoku, an old family heirloom, and taking a long suffering sight, he started his descend into the darkness without a pause.

There will be no traps here, they will lay way bellow and closer to the Fae King.

As he descended and the darkness closed around him, Law’s sword soon begun to cast a little red light in the darkness. It wasn’t anything big, just a faint glow emitted by all the cursed swords that sprinkled this world, bus as Law’s eyes adjusted to the dark, it seemed to be enough. Cursed swords could be a pain in the ass since they tended to bring more problems than help to its owner, but they also had nice tricks that could be useful _sometimes_.

Law walked down and down, for what seemed like hours but could had been minutes. The lack of light and the eternal never ending steps were confusing his mind and sense of time greatly. A part of his mind again remembered the Fae stories, about how Fae could change time and space, and how an hour in their land could mean decades in their own world. Law frowned at himself when the unease returned. He was an assassin. He had committed crimes that would make any man whimper in fear, he had seen the real monsters of the world, he had faced horrors and pains like no other man. The Fae could not be worse. No matter their tricks and games, he will overcome them all and end up the victor.

After a while longer, the stairs finally ended and gave way to a huge antechamber of high ceilings and sharp arches that looked almost like the inside of a cathedral. Law kept on walking forwards, following the invisible path with his glowing sword to guide his steps. He could hear his footsteps echo though the whole empty space, and as he walked under the arches and twisted colonnades, the sculpted figures on the spiers seemed to follow him with dark empty eyes. Monsters and weird shaped humans looked down on him with grimacing faces twisted in pain and horror. There were paintings too in the ceilings, with gold decorating a few robed figures representing Fae and winged males, but the atmosphere of the place remained the same of the paramo. Sinister and wicked. A place that should have remained forgotten and untouched.

Law walked forward, with no map nor clue or sign, just going forward on instinct.

Finally, the far wall of the antechamber appeared before Law with a huge door stood in its middle. There were carving in its iron surface, runes and draws Law could not even recognise but that _again_ , looked ominous enough. Robin, his dear friend, and head librarian on the capital, will surely love this place.

Law studied it more carefully. A slight subtle light could be seen behind it. There had been a lock once on its knob, but the whole piece was left broken, and the huge door was already partially opened. Law secretly thanked the five gods for it for the door was huge and heavy and there would have been no way for him to move it. Angling his body so he could pass through the small gap, Law crossed over to the next room and had to gasp.

It was like entering into another world.

A whole volcano chamber had been used to construct a fortress and a castle for one of the most feared Fae Kings, while the volcano was still active and roaring. Law contemplated the rivers of lava and liquid magma flow slowly around and through the structure, illuminating its tall towers and protecting it like any other river would protect a castle’s pit. There were cascades pouring melted rock symmetrically and precisely down the fortress sides, as if this place had been constructed with the use of the volcano in mind, in a work of architecture and engineering that will put the world above to shame.

For a moment, Law just stared in awe at the miracle he had found in the middle of nowhere. The light of the fire illuminated the whole place with blues and reds and yellows, between the rocks of the castle, behind the back clouds of smoke, it poured over the whole chamber giving it a dreamlike look as it reflected on the castle obsidian walls.

The fortress among all that colour and light rose higher than any other castle Law had seen before, its pointy towers grew one on top of the other. There were strange twisted and blackened trees growing between some spiked roofs, with their leaves ashen as if they had been long ago burned, but sprouting golden fruits. There were sparks of gold and light on the battlements and main tower, like decorations added on a last though.

It wasn't exactly what Law had ever imagined of Fae settlements.

The raw power of nature was there, the mix of magic with architecture and natural elements, but it was all taken into a whole new level. The whole place was indeed elegant, a wonder that would make anyone gasp in amazement at what they were seeing, but the whole thing looked absolutely _threatening_.

Where was the soft sound of rivers and water that Fae loved in the stories? The music and laugh? There was no fair Fae Lady coming out of a pond with a kind smile and the solution to Law's problems. This felt more like one of those signs and wired fences people put on their house to keep thieves out.

Again, Fae drama. His mom would be proud.

Besides Eustass Kidd was supposed to be the last one of the Fae, the King of Darkness, a man feared even among his race _, of course_ , he was not gonna live in a pretty magical pond with animal friends to welcome strangers. Law sighed and again he searched for his motivation to do this whole stupid thing. There wasn't any. Doflamingo was just a powerful ambitious king, and Law was just the poor miserable asshole who had to obey him.

He walked towards the looming castle with its cool magmatic river. The sooner he did this the sooner his suffering will end and he could return to the capital and to his books. As he approached, however, the whole structure seemed to loom over him more and more creepily. It was just too big. Too threatening. Too tall. Why would anyone want to live in a place like this? Wasn’t the famous Fae King supposed to live alone without a court? He wondered how the man was really like if he lived in such a place.

He crossed the magmatic river following the little stone bridge that had been left down over it, and finally reached the huge door of metal and wood of the castle. _The castle withing a magmatic chamber within a hidden pathway within a deserted moor._ No wonder Kidd was the last survivor of his race. His enemies probably got lost among all the chaos of this place. Maybe Kidd too was lost and that's why no one had seen him for decades, he was just trying to find the way out.

Smiling to himself, Law observed the door open on invisible hands and finally, after a week of travel from the castle to this place, and after remembering a hundred stories and wonders from his childhood and his inner child marvelling that he was finally going to meet a legend, Law stepped into Eustass Kidd fortress.

...oOo...

Eustass Kidd, last King of the Fae, watched carefully the human male who had stepped into his living room. He had been following his progress through his own land since the moment the man had stepped foot into the paramo, and after days of waiting, the human was finally here. His first visitor in centuries, the first one who had dared importunate him after all he had done.

He was a young man, barely thirty, his chin was covered by a soft stubble and he had a pair of hardened grey eyes that shone under the fire light. He was fit, with the lean muscles of the human warriors, and moved with the practice’s stealth and fluid motions of the assassins. He was also wearing black from head to toe, his boots, the hooded cape or the tunic under. Black on black on exhaustion on road dust. Kidd could also sense more than a dozen of blades hidden among the man clothes, concealed or in plain view like the cursed sword the man had ready between tense fingers that glowed with a faint light.

He was the first human Kidd had seen since he had built this place thousands of years ago, and the first one who had ever stepped foot in his fortress. Kidd was still wondering if that made the man stupid of incredibly brave. As the man looked around his living room confused and frowning, his hand gripping his sword tighter, Kidd leaned more on the stupid side.

Entering into Fae land was suicide for any human. Kidd knew the mortals had their tales and myths about them --all of them true-- about their tricks and dangers and ploys and games, so to willingly seek them out could only be considered an act of madness or suicide. To seek a Fae King more specifically, between all the Fae, would only mean a total lack of intelligence and surviving instincts.

But to search for _him, the Dark King of the Fae, it_ was to court with death.

Kidd had not spent a hundred years building a fearful reputation and an even darker bloody legend about himself, so guests could come bang on his door. He had always enjoyed violence and blood to a point where even his fellow Fae Kings had cringed away from him in horror. For centuries he had indulged himself in a thousand battles, in a hundred wit games to win over more land and territory, until there was no enemy left worth killing and he was he most powerful men of the land. It had been then when, bored of life, of the lame Fae courts and weak humans, he had spun the legends and illusions, and had retired to this place so he could be left alone and unbothered by the outside world to waste away his immortality.

He had wanted peace, solitude, no one near him to judge his decisions and life so he could do whatever he wanted with the time he had left.

Yet, here this man was here. Willingly. Searching for him.

The human looked around the whole place without really seeing him deep down in the shadows of the far wall. He looked wary, confused. He was also gripping the pommel of that sword with tight white fingers that seemed to be about to break from the gripping force he was applying to it.

Kidd wanted to roll his eyes. The ominous castle? The big terrifying room of magma around it? It was just an illusion to keep people out. Who would need a place that big living alone anyway? In reality, his real castle was just and oversized manor with a couple of floors, a handful of bedrooms and a forge where Kidd spend half his time creating wonders and artefacts that could destroy worlds and cities.

This living room was only part of it. A big room of high ceilings, polished wood and a comfortable fire next to a comfortable sofa. Habitable. Nice. There were a few weapons he had been working on in a corner, books about metals and physics on a desk, carpets on the floor, drawers pilled with a hundred objects, strange plants and paintings, but it all looked cosy. You could even watch the sun begun to set on some of the enchanted windows, while it rose on the next one. One of his most amusing tricks. A few fire faeries were even dancing next to the fire or playing among the candelabra on the ceiling, their little bodies glowing as they moved around.

It was pretty. A nice house. Yet the poor little human seemed about to have a heart attack.

Kidd decided to put him out of his misery. He was not letting this man go out, it was already problematic enough that he had reached this place and found this chamber. Probably Kidd’s own fault, since he had left all _fucking doors opened_ _and the bridges down_ , but who could have expected a human actually getting this far and ignoring all those warnings? He hadn’t considered the factor of stupidity into his plans apparently. Still, he couldn't let the stupid human go; Kidd knew how humans worked, once you let one in, the rest came behind pouring. They were like the plague.

Moving his power around the room, Kidd moved along his shadows, always concealed, always shifting and unseen, until he was at arm’s reach of the man dressed in pure black. He rose his hand. Choking him will be fastest. And less messy, since the blood will be kept _inside_ of him and won’t spill into his beautiful moving rugs.

He was reaching into his power to do it, when the man reached a hand up, and pulled the hood down to breath in the warm air of the room. The light of the fire finally managed to illuminate his whole face and messy dark hair. A handsome male. However, it wasn't his face what made Kidd stop short, but the mark on the back of the man's hand, curling around his fingers, crossing the back of the human’s palm and disappearing on his wrist. A tattoo of curling tendrils of black shadows and shapes. The design was so complex that it could only be one thing: the symbol of a blood match.

A symbol that was exactly the same as the one Kidd had in his own hand. The one he had been cursing and staring, and stupidly hoping for for centuries.

This man was his mate.

His blood match.

The only person in the whole world Kidd could not run away from because they were one and the same.

Feelings curled in his head intense and deep like nothing he had felt before. Wonder, surprise, longing, horror. A blood match was a sacred thing among Fae. The people who were born with it were said to be gifted beyond anything, and the marks were treasured and revered. Kidd himself had watched it with wonder when young, but after a couple of centuries, he had given up on the whole thing and decided it had to be another symbol besides the blood match, since he hadn’t been able to find the other person. It had been by that time, when he had given up on finding his mate, when he had abandoned the battlefields and preferred the solitude, the forgotten land, and loneliness.

He hadn’t been able to watch the already matched pairs back then and be civil.

Yet, after all this time, after losing all hope, after accepting fate, here his partner was. He checked the human male again from among the shadows with surprised eyes as the man finally stepped further into the room and approached the fire to study the painting of his mother and father on top of it with their blood marks curling around their necks with the colours and shape of twin fishes.

The human’s eyes again caught Kidd's attention. An almost translucent shade of grey that glowed in the light. They were hard eyes, empty and cold, like Kidd's own had been all this time. As if this human had also given up on life long ago. His face was way to elegant and his features soft in contrast, pretty, like a courtier or a flirty company male. He had grown a little goate and he had his hair short in a military fashion, as if to roughen his pretty looks, but instead the whole thing just gave him a sexy look instead of the macho one.

For a moment Kidd wanted to tease him. Touch his fingers to those features, trace his lips. _This man was his mate_. For a moment he wanted to caress, explore and learn about the person he had given for lost so long ago.

It was weird. Creepy. A bit stalking.

Kidd tried to control himself. He didn't know this man, why he was here, or even his name. It was uncommon, but not all mate stories had a happy ending. Furthermore, humans were not normally so fond of their mates as the Fae race, the meaning of those marks had always been lost to them, and people carrying those symbols were normally regarded as something evil, touched by the Fae. If he wanted to gain his mate, he needed to be very careful on how he proceeded.

Kidd walked around the man felling the thrill of a fight he hadn’t fought in centuries. The only fight and courting that mattered, and the one he had been waiting for his whole life. With care he approached his mate while submerged in the shadows, focusing on details he hadn't seen before. The worn out and old clothes that had seen better days, those dark circles under his silver eyes, or the callused and scarred hands. His eyes again traced those dark lines curling around fingers identical to his own. He had so many questions for this male, so many things he wanted to know, but finally only one question rose to his lips.

"Who are you?" He asked next to the man's ear in a small tease wanting to see how he would react.

The human instantly whirled on him, his sword raising in a lethal gesture, but Kidd was already stepping away, his unnatural strength allowing him to move faster than any human ever would wish. The shadows at his command instantly hugged him back among them, hiding him from view, and with amusement he watched the grey eyes of the pretty male look around with a frown and murderous eyes.

A no shit kind of man. Good. The human scratched at his ear as if to get rid of Kidd’s touch. He then took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders as if to look more imposing. He was hella cute. If you ignored the blades, the killing instinct and glares, although those had their appeal too.

"I’m Trafalgar Law." The man announced.

Kidd closed his eyes for a moment just savouring that voice. Controlled and slow, like a caress over soft velvet. The kind of voice that would turn breathy and husky on bed as the man finally let go of that control. Kidd liked his lips, and readjusted the lose brown pant he was wearing. He was so damn fucked.

He approached again enclosed by shadows and asked again on the males’ other ear. "And what are you doing here, Trafalgar Law?"

Trafalgar Law flinched and turned around again searching for him. A pissed, murderous glint suddenly appearing in his eyes. Kidd smirked, suddenly feeling like a predator stalking prey. He was enjoying this way more than he should, and the fact that the male didn’t seem slight scared of him but just more and more pissed as Kidd played with him, warmed his heart.

There weren’t many people who weren’t scared by him. He had done horrible things after all. Maybe his mate should be scared. Maybe he was stupid for not being scared. But the fact that he wasn’t pleased Kidd. It pleased him immensely.

He took the decision just then. He was keeping this male. He didn’t care if they were too different, or if things didn’t work at the end. He was tired of being alone and immersing himself in dark thoughts and memories of a lost civilization day after day, he much better preferred to play with his mate. He also wanted this male on his bed if was almost a compulsion. He wanted to claim, bite, and see this fearless man come undone under his touch and mouth. He wanted to explore those marks and tattoos he could glimpse under his tunic, he wanted to see what pleased him, how far he needed to push to make him moan his name, and beg for him. They will figure out the whole mates and getting to know each other later, Kidd had always known his priorities.

His mate, Law, shrugged in front of him, turning in circles around the room and trying to pry into the shadows to no avail. Kidd saw his jaw tighten, his temper rise, and he almost purred in answer. He will make him beg, it will probably turn the man mad.

"I am here to propose a deal." Law finally said raising his voice and chin as if in challenge.

Kidd brain again stopped working at the stupidity and absurdity of the whole fucking situation. This man --a human, his mate-- had not only walked right to a Fae territory and into one of the King's lairs, but he also wanted to propose a deal?

Horror and delight sparkled again and this time he couldn't control the snort that finally turned into a full-on laugh.

This was gonna be so easy. He could almost taste the man breaths against his own already, his pulse under his teeth, his skin against his own. This was going to be the fastest courting ever in history. Which was good, because Kidd had no patience for the lovely-dovely shit. If his mate had no clue of what he was getting into, wasn’t it Kidd’s duty to teach him? Was he not supposed to be an asshole?

He finally let the shadows retreat to their natural corners, revealing himself to the light, and faced the man with a smirk in his face.

"All right, let's hear it."

...oOo...

Law observed the King of the Fae feeling… a bit disappointed. The man was tall, taller than him and most human men, and he had that deep red hair from the stories, the one that sparked fear in his enemies hearts, wild and untamed, falling over his forehead in a roguish sexy manner. He was also strongly built, muscles packed on top of muscles, not even the warrior kind Law was used to see, but as if he spent good amounts of time doing hard labour even thought he was a King.

But that's where the resemblance between the stories and reality ended.

The male smirked at him with a self-assured golden eyes, and Law just remembered the uncouth youth soldiers from Doflamingo's palace, full of arrogance and self-confidence. Brutes and assholes who suddenly found themselves with too much power and had no problem using it. There was no cultured and elegant royalty before him, no fearsome male of sharp intelligence and fearful power, he looked just like any other over-confident soldier Law had met, just bigger and bulkier.

He was handsome though, like all Fae were supposed to be, with thin lips and golden eyes that shone under the candlelight. He had a sharp jaw, a sculped nose and a skin so white it seemed as if this man had been touched only by the night and moonlight. He was wearing just a pair of brown pants and black worn out boots, his chest bared to the golden light. For a moment Law wanted to touch him, skim his fingers through the scarlet hair, trace that smirk that turned him hot and pissed at the same time. Law guessed that if this man ever dared to dress up properly, take a bath, pamper himself like the king he was supposed to be, he might be the most handsome male in existence.

But despite the beauty there was no doubt that Eustass Kidd, looked like death made flesh.This was no detached mighty royalty who will demand his head on a silver plate, this was a king who would have his pleasure in ripping his heart off himself. Dangerous, lethal and bloodlust. Worse than in the darkest of his stories.

Law tried to collect his thoughts. This was the tricky part of any story his mother had told him. The moment where the human’s fate was decided.

"We will make a competition. An archery competition" he quickly specified. A game dependant on ability and strategy, not luck. "If I win, your life will be mine to do as I like with you."

And he will kill him. The last Fae. The last King. He will do once more what Doflamingo demanded and finish a race of creatures he had loved when young.

The Fae King approached him once more, circling him with intense dangerous eyes, as if he had a personal score to settle. Law refused to even look away from those eyes, he was not coward who will shrink away after some glares and intimidations. He had faced much worse than this king.

"What if you lose?" The legendary king asked, his face again dangerously close to his as the man crowded closer, making him pull back by instinct. The king had a dangerous voice, it got under his skin, it warmed places in him that had been cold for decades.

"What do you want?"

The king inclined his head like a cat, in a gesture so feline and fluid it made Law again remember a wild beast from the northern forests. His golden eyes kept roving over him, assessing and calculating, and if Law did not know it was impossible, he would say the King was even checking him out.

He frowned at the ridiculous though.

"Eye for an eye," the King finally whispered with a smirk. "If I win ‘your life is mine to do as I please’, wasn’t it?" 

He smiled again showing sharp white teeth. A crazy smile. His eyes roamed over his body from head to toe once more, before the King licked his lips suggestively. Law ignored him. He was doing that flirting and teasing just to distract him from the deal. He was Fae, attractive, and he had probably used his looks before to distract hundreds of mortals. 

Shutting up that disappointed part of him that had wanted to lick the King on first sight, Law focused again on the deal and the requirements he had been thinking for days now. He wanted to kill this man, not get into his bed. You didn’t get involved with your targets. It was rule number one on any assassins’ book.

Internally shaking himself, Law remembered the conditions he had carefully crafted for this.

“As rules, you won't be allowed to use your magic during the competition. I will choose the bows, arrows, and target. You won't distract me or talk to me or do anything within my vicinity to distract me while I shot. You will allow me a night of rest before it, and you will accept the results without complain."

Law had taken everything into consideration for this trial, though about everything that could go wrong, before, during, and after, and accounted for it. If the King accepted the conditions, it was over for him. With both of them standing on equal ground, it was impossible for the King to win against him. He had never heard any legend in which the Fae king using a bow, meanwhile hunting and shooting were every-day skills for Law. He was the best shorter in all the kingdom, it had been the reason Doflamingo had murdered his whole family so he could recruit him into his ranks. Law had even spent years training after that until he could make impossible shots. Like the Fae King he had forged his own legend on the land. And so, with him being able to pick the targets, bows, and arrows, there was no opportunity for his target to win.

He extended his hand, the one with the cursed marks spiralling around his fingers that had caused him a hundred beatings when he had been weaker and way younger on a King’s castle.

"Do we have a deal?" He challenged.

The king again stared at him with that annoying amusement in his eyes and that knowing smirk in his mouth. As if he knew something Law didn’t. As if he had forgotten a mayor detail. As if he was already stepping into the trap.

Taking his hands out of his trousers’ pockets, he clasped a big callused hand around Law’s extended one in a hard and almost proprietary handshake. A tattooed hand covered also in twisting twirls of shadows, the exact copy of Law’s own.

“We have a deal.” he whispered again getting closer to Law’s face, breathing his same breath, gazing intently into his eyes with unspoken words.

Law frowned at it all. At the proximity, as the same exact tattoo, at the fact the King had not argued or demanded things for himself for the deal despite Law’s obvious abuse of the rules. But it was already too late, as the man released his hand, Law understood that his destiny was already sealed. The story continued. There was no stepping back from this.

...oOo...

Law sat down next to the small chimneys’ fire and against one of the sofas, in a perfect position to watch all doors and exits from the room, and slowly eat the roasted lamb leg the King had given him as a meal. He had slept in worst living situations, under the rain in the unwelcoming north, and down in battlefields painted with blood, so his position, next to a fire and over a warm fluffy carpet, with a sofa at his back and a roof over his head could be considered an improvement. Even the room at the palace he had to share with a handful of soldiers was never this warm and dry.

He had refused the King's offer of a proper bedroom, though. He couldn't trust the Fae, not in the slightest, if he accepted something, the man might ask then for an impossible price to pay over it. If he wanted a bed, he should have specified so in the original deal, but since he hadn’t, the floor was it. The lamb had been given to him without him needing to ask for it, so he had guessed it was safe to eat.

It had tasted like glory, nevertheless.

After finishing his first hot meal in weeks, he licked the grease off his fingers under the attentive stare of King, and pulling the cape tighter around his shoulders, he curled into himself over the floor, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

He woke up with darkness still around him. Under the mountain and inside the weird castle, time seemed relative and the light inconsistent. It was midday in the forest from one window while in the floor to ceiling coloured glass next wall, the moon was setting behind a silver mountain.

The Fae king was already walking around the bedroom picking books and different things and clearly trying to put order in the chaos that was this place. There were still half melted weapons in a corner. Books in languages and topics he had never heard about, and plants and carpets and cushions and tools spread on the floor and on the corners. The group of little fire faeries had sat themselves on the chandelier between the ivy vines, and were looking at him with interest with their little sparkling eyes.

This was a cosy well lived room. Like his parent’s healers hut had been. The kind of place he had been longing for since he had been forced to leave his home behind submerged in a roaring fire.

Law once more supressed the dark memories as he was used to do and sat on the floor. He was slightly surprised that he hadn't woken from his usual light sleep at the King’s presence. he slowly stretched his numb sleep-tight muscles and got to his feet with a wince. The Fae King instantly looked him over with intent calculative eyes that travelled over his body from head to toe as if assessing him and making sure he was fine. Probably wanting to see if he had some kind of weakness he could exploit. When the King then smirked and winked at him a second after, Law was tempter to give him the finger.

Stupid Fae and their tricks.

He ignored the asshole and got around his morning routine. Using a water basin the King had left for him, he washed his face and mouth, and walking outside one more, he relieved himself and tried to stretch a bit practicing a quick morning routine that relaxed his muscles and centred his mind into what was to come. He tried to fall back into that dark cold place his mind went whenever he had to kill someone, that part of him that was full of screams and fire and shadows, but he found with worry that today it was impossible for him to reach that state of mind.

Worried but unable to delay this further, he came back into the room and faced Eustass Kidd.

"I'm done," he proclaimed. "Let's get this over with.

The king smiled at him. Not a good smile. Neither one of his annoying smirks. Just a forced tense one, as if he could read Law like an open book and could understand. It unsettled Law even further, but he could do nothing as the king opened a door and guided him into the deeper parts of the castle, thought golden stairs, art filled corridors and courtyards full of strange plants. Until they reached another weapon filled room.

There was a bit of everything in the crystal showcases, drawers mounted on the walls, or just pilled into neat piles on the corners. Ancient swords, lances, hammers, and wicked weapons Law had never seen before. There were strange armours like the ones from the warrior statues at the entrance, sabres and shields, but Law just ignored the fancy and pretty looking ones and just walked straight to the bow armoire.

He studied all the bows, he touched and tested a few of them, but after only a couple of minutes, he picked two with an expert glance. The one for himself was a dark one of hard yew wood that flexed and bended in a perfect way under his fingers with little give, while the second was made of a pretty chestnut wood that felt way to soft and breakable after a few trials.

He gave the last one to the Fae who took it without blinking, as if Law’s decisions didn’t mattered to the final result. Then Law went back to pick a bunch of iron headed arrows with goose feathers on the back. The arrows were not as important as the bows. If it was straight and had some pointy part and feathers it will be enough. Law had learned about it the hard way.

After they were done with the weapons, they again travelled the little house, thought steps and corridors and courtyards, down and down a couple of floors, then up and about. For a moment it seemed as if the King was drawing him in circles and making him lose his way, but finally, the Fae stopped before a door, and they entered a completely black room.

"We will do the trial here." The king said closing the door behind them and submerging them in darkness.

Law waited for a second, for a light to be lit, for some magic to spark in the blackness and show a room or a shooting field, but after a few breaths, it was clear there will be no light coming.

"There is no light in here to see anything, how am I supposed to shot at anything?" Law asked, realizing his mistake just as the words slipped from his mouth.

"That is not my problem," the Fae King answered with contempt in his voice confirming Law’s dreadful thoughts. "You didn't specify a place where you wanted the trial conducted. Now pick the targets and let's get done with this."

Law cursed internally. Fuck. _Fuck_. He had been thinking this for days and he hadn't thought about the place? He was stupid, done, beyond fucked. You were supposed to think everything to don’t get tricked this way, how could he have committed such huge mistake?

He gripped the bow in his hands tightly and took a deep breath. He could do this. This was only a minor detail, some drawback, he had the rest of the deal completely planned, and there was no way the King could pull another trick like this. He just needed to focus to figure the darkness out. There had to be a way to work around it. And if the Fae wanted to play dirty so could he.

"I want you to shoot at the moon." he said slowly. He could pick any target he wanted, even if it wasn’t within reach.

The Fae male at his side snorted. "And how would you check if I had hit it or not? Are you gonna walk up there and see?"

Law smiled slowly in the dark and shrugged. " _That is not my problem_. I can pick any target. I chose the moon for you."

The Fae growled. It was just impossible and they both knew it. They were inside a room, and inside a cave with the moon far away and up in the sky, Kidd’s bow was a playful thing used to show children how to properly shoot. Normal shoots with that would only reach a few metres forward, not the miles required to shoot at a moon.

Something squirmed around Law’s boots making him flinch. What was that? Where was he? With no light to guide him he could be anywhere, and that uncertainty sparked a little bead of fear inside him. What if this was a trap? What if the Fae had taken him into some horrid place. Eustass Kidd was a feared man, surely he had some dark and bloody rooms in his castle.

Law took a deep breath to calm his racing imagination, and instead focused on the male at his side who seemed to be fumbling with the bow and arrows in the darkness. There was a moment of silence after that, and finally, a loud thump was heard on the room as something went flying through the air at a fast speed. Something crashed on the ceiling and there was a yelp of surprise.

Apparently, as Law had guessed, they weren't alone in the darkness. Fear again flashed. What was that? Wasn’t the King supposed to live alone in this place? Should he have taken whatever was in here into consideration for the challenge?

"I missed." the Fae said with less anger than Law expected. As if he was expecting this whole thing to happen.

"I know." Law answered. He wanted to roll his eyes at the arrogant male, but in the darkness that will be futile, so he refrained. "You still have two more shots."

Kidd grunted beside him, but after a moment two more thumbs and cracks were heard over the room followed one after another. The thing in the room begun to growl and get pissed at each new sound.

Law finally picked his own bow as the other huffed boredly but not in the least angered, as if he still had the upper hand of the deal. Law guessed he had; Law still had to win. If he lost, he was sure the King would use the wording of their deal to his own advantage. After all, they had only talked about Law’s victory or lost, not Kidd’s. Law was sure that suggesting another match would be impossible. He was still surprised it had worked the first time and that the King hadn’t killed him on sight.

"What will be your target be, human?" the man said as if reading his mind.

Law turned around the room, slowly trying to see anything, just something that could serve him. He twisted the words of the deal too, trying to figure out too a way around this problem. But it seemed that it won’t be necessary at the end. As he turned around the room trying to find anything, his vision focused on a little pinprick of light on the door they had come though.

“The keyhole," he said already tasting victory. He will win. He will then kill this man and come back to the palace having annihilated a whole race. The though tasted bitter once more in his mind, but this was his life now. A peon. Useless. Murderer. "I will be shooting at the keyhole."

He walked further into the room to gain some distance for the bow to actually work. Then he picked an arrow and adjusted it in the bow easily. He needed no light to study the distance or the position of his fingers, he was the best hunter in the kingdom, the most skilled assassin at archery.

He rose his eyes to the target.

The arrow flew straight from his bow and into the keyhole, but just as it was about to hit it, a dark shadow snatched it.

He turned to the Fae growing livid. "The deal was for you to not intervene!"

"That wasn't me. I didn't do anything. I didn't intervene, used my magic, or nagged at you." The Fae said with a bored, uncaring tone, but with glee under the cool façade. He knew this will happen. "It is not my fault my pet decided to play fetch with your arrows."

A yelp answered its master as if in answer.

Law gritted his teeth and again pulled another arrow. So that’s what had been lurking in the shadows giving him the creeps. But what kind of pet could snatch arrows like that? Maybe it had been just luck. His arrows were fast and deadly, they couldn't be picked out of the air as if they were nothing. He knew. Many had tried it before. Doflamingo had wanted to play court games once, but Law’s shoots were just too fast for those kinds of things and the result had been anything but pretty. Law wasn’t yet allowed in a few noble houses.

He shot again. A fast arrow who could be barely seen as it raced towards the light. But the result was the same. A big hiss, a big shadow snatching it and no hitting sound.

This was cheating. The Fae was cheating. First the darkness, and now the pet. He shouldn't have trusted him in the first place. His mother always told him to never trust the Fae. How had he been so stupid? If he lost, the deal was that Law will become the Fae’s plaything, and after the legends and all he had seen, he was sure the whole thing would be anything but pretty. And Law hadn’t come this far, he hadn’t betrayed his ideals, lost his family and killed and killed and killed so much to just become someone’s new pet. He had gained an inch of freedom these last years with Doflamingo, he was not losing that and starting again from zero.

"One arrow left" the Fae sing-songed again against his ear making him shiver in rage.

Then a big hand slapped against his ass, and Law saw red.

Eustass Kidd was taunting him, Law knew it, but suddenly he just wanted to kill the arrogant know-it-all asshole with his tricks and cool castle and cozy living room, maybe he should just …The idea struck him. He didn't need this stupid deal, his mission was just to kill this man, and Kidd was now unarmed and unaware of anything. He was just circling around him like a vulture waiting for a prey to die.

But Law was done being a prey.

Following that smirking voice, that warmth behind him, Law turned in one fluid motion and shot at the Fae King with his last arrow.

There was no sound. No hit. No yelp. No scream of pain and rage.

Just nothing but darkness and a sudden overwhelming silence.

Law took a shaking breath lowering the bow. Maybe he had killed him so fast the man had died standing up. It had happened before, maybe he just…

Suddenly a strong hand pushed him hard and back, and surprised, Law stumbled and fell down into something soft.

Lights flickered, and Law blinked as he took in a simple and beautiful room. Wood was everywhere, like in every room inside the castle, but there were red satin curtains around the bed post, there was a sudden lit fire, more books, more cushions, more wardrobes of fancy materials, and…

Law was sprawled on a bed, the bow still in hand, and the King was looming above him, with an intense look in his eyes.

"You lost." the Dark Fae King said slowly, with no room for arguments, no trace of pity. "Your life now belongs to me."

And then he kissed him.

...oOo...

Kidd saw the human shocked and horrified expression and chuckled despite the dire situation. The kiss was nothing serious, barely a press of lips against lips with no real passion behind it, but it stilled the man under him like nothing had seemed to do before.

He glared at Kidd as if he was already thinking in a precisely way to disembowel him. 

He was kind of cute. He was kind of handsome, with all that tanned golden tattooed skin, the baby soft black hair and silver expressive eyes. For a moment he wanted to deepen the kiss, explore him better, indulge a bit in his newfound mate, but this wasn’t the time. They obviously needed to talk first, explanations needed to be made, they needed to set some basic ground, and maybe, start to learn about each other. He wanted the courting and the whole relationship to go right, because this mean everything now. If the man went away running because Kidd hadn’t managed to keep it in his pants, he will regret it all his life.

He hadn’t thought like that yesterday, he knew it. Yesterday he had just wanted to fuck him and then figure things out, but during the night and this whole morning he had been catching glimpses. Dark dreams, haunted silences, tormented silver eyes who stared into past horrors. The man was hyperaware of everything, as if he feared an attack from any shadow. He kept flinching at every touch, at every approach. It had frozen the lust and sparkled worry.

His mate had been _deeply_ hurt. He had seen those looks on soldiers after specially bloody battles, on victims of abuse, on mourning families. It was a fact that froze Kidd’s heart and made it beat to a deadly cold rhythm. It made it hard to even think past the frozen rage.

So he had decided that no, he will not do anything to Law until he knew what had happened. Until those looks faded, until the flinching stopped, until his posture relaxed. 

Separating from the rigid tense body under him, he rolled into the mattress beside the human and took a deep breath calming his thoughts and instincts who seemed to be on overdrive. He could still feel that amusing glare from the male at his side. No one had glared at him before. At least not like that. It made him feel awkward and proud at the same time.

Trafalgar Law, however, didn’t even move an inch from his position by his side on the bed, and after a moment, he just turned his head to stare at the ceiling.. He heard Killer, the pet Chimera he had adopted a few centuries back, exit the bedroom with a huff and had to control a smile.

“You cheated.” the human finally accused between clenched teeth, as if he needed to make that point crystal clear.

“We all cheat.” Apparently, it was part of being a Fae. “You are a very sore loser, thought. You tried to kill me.”

That made the human flinch. His brows frowned and again it made Kidd want to ask a few questions. He was still wondering how he should feel after his mate had tried to kill him. It had been stupid yeah, Kidd had moved away the moment he had felt the human focus land on him, and with his speed and magic it had been easy to make the arrow disappear. The moment had still left him breathless. Law was apparently a very skilled man with a bow if he could shoot in the darkness and with such precision, and the moment had just looked way too planned. That though again rose many questions in his mind, many that made him worry.

“What would you have done with my life if you had win?” He asked on a hunch.

The man besides him turned to look at him with cold dead eyes that stopped Kidd’s heart.

“End it.” He said. No pity. No regret. A man dead inside.

The made Kidd pause again and raise an eyebrow completely taken aback. Again, arrogant or plain stupid? Or maybe there was more behind it all? Maybe…his mate was suicidal. It will explain the dark looks, the nightmares, this whole thing. What other explanation could it have? Was there some other reason Kidd was not seeing?

“And why is that?” He had to ask carefully. “Have I done something to you?”

“No.” the man answered with a pissed sigh and a detachment in his eyes that reminded Kidd of his own. “I serve the king of this land. He wanted you dead so he could reclaim your territory. So he sent me, his best assassin.”

Oh. _Oh_. That was better, wasn’t it? No suicidal. No craziness. Just some stupid mission. Maybe he needed to pay a visit to that stupid mortal king who now ruled this place and remind him why the Fae had once been the feared rulers of the whole island. “Well you can keep trying to kill me if you wish, since, you know, you are gonna spend a lot of time in here and things will surely get boring.”

The man clenches his teeth and turned to glare at him once more. “I am not staying here, you cheated!”

Kidd rolled his eyes while smirking. “And you made me shoot at the moon with a shitty bow. As if that is not cheating too.”

“I won’t stay here.” The man repeated the anger and heat replacing the coldness and detachment and making Kidd’s chest warm for a moment in victory. “I _will_ kill you!”

“ _Again_ , you are free to keep on trying, although with your mortal skills I find that difficult to believe, Mr assassin.”

“You…I…” The human stammered as if he had never been insulted so much. “I swear I will find a way to _end you_ , asshole!” he finally threatened unabashed.

“I’m sure you would,” Kidd said with a happy smile. So the man was staying, wasn’t he? “In the meanwhile, do you know what mates are?”

The human again looked at him puzzled by the change of topic and blinked a few times as if trying to follow the conversation. Kidd once more wanted to kiss that dumbfounded expression out of his sulking face. It had been long since he had had so much fun riling someone up. And to see life spark behind the cold frozen eyes seemed to be his new purpose in life.

“What? Mates? Fae mates?” Kidd nodded. The human frowned. “Yeah, it’s… in the love stories of your kind, they are your partners, the ones you are destined to be with…Why are you asking me about this?”

Kidd raised his own hand and showed him his mark, the curling tendrils of ink around his fingers and travelling over the back of his palm to the wrist. Once he had stopped believing in the blood match, he had started to believed it to be a sign of his strange power to merge with the shadows and darkness, but apparently it was indeed a mates mark.

In front of him the human observed Kidd’s hands and then rose his own one to study and compare. He frowned for a second. Then the understanding hit, and he paled. He rose his grey eyes and looked at Kidd with a kind of horror in his eyes that pissed Kidd a little bit.

“You are my mate.” he proclaimed, and if he sounded a bit possessive, who could blame him?.

The human stared at him for a long moment, his eyebrows going up and up for a moment. Then he chuckled a dry sarcastic laugh.

“No. Just…no.” He leaned down on the bed to look at the ceiling. Then he rose his hands to his head in a disbelieving gesture. “This had to be some kind of joke. You had to be kidding me!”

Kidd again rolled over a loomed slightly over the human who was about to have a panic attack. He had been enjoying his mate’s expressions since the moment they had met, the shock and anger, but this horror was starting to make him uneasy. And he wasn’t the nicest person when he got mad.

“With me being the King, I guess you would become the… ‘Queen of the Fae’? I don’t think that title will suit you, though.” He said speculatively. “What about consort?”

The human looked at him at that. Silver grey eyes. Like the blades Kidd had spent centuries forging. Like the sky on an autumn morning. The coldness and indifference had momentarily disappeared from them but caution and distrust were mixing together in one concoction now. “Are you mocking me? Is this another Fae trick so I will accept the deal and serve you?”

Although the question was a totally rational one, Kidd quickly understood it for what it was. The tone had been a bit too high pitched for a completely rational question, as if emotions had been mixed into it. Kidd had heard that same pitch before in wounded mistreated animals who were wondering if they could trust again after being hurt so many times. A silent deadly coldness spread through Kidd once more. A sudden silent rage setting into his bones screaming for justice and vengeance for his mate. The Fae were dangerous and wicked in the stories, feared and worshipped at the same time, but if someone hurt their mates, they could raise pandemonium. If someone had ever hurt Kidd’s mate, well, they were already walking corpses.

He took a deep breath. This moment was theirs. He would reassure his mate first and kill later. Pleasure before duty.

“Do the Fae ever lie about their mates in your stories?” he asked slowly.

The human thought his question over for a moment. He again frowned, his eyes going through a hundred emotions in a few seconds, pain, longing, wonder and again that mistrust, but finally he answered. “No”.

Because mates were sacred, and no matter what assholes they were, the Fae knew how to protect valuable things.

Kidd smiled.

“You are mine, and I’m yours. You will serve me, and I will serve you. You don’t have to keep on killing people on the orders of any stupid king…Unless you want to.” He clarified, they didn’t know each other so much yet, and maybe his mate was as bloodthirsty as he had once been. “From now on I am your only King.”

Leaning down he pressed another soft kiss on the human forehead, careful, with no heat or lust, just love and comfort.

“Welcome home, Law.” he whispered to the person he had been waiting his whole life for.

The human was blushing now looking at him again speechless. Too many emotions swirled in his pretty silver eyes, things Kidd recognized because he was feeling them too. The wariness was still there, Kidd guessed it will take him some time to trust again and to get to know one another, but now there was also hope in there. Finally, someone to trust, who won’t harm him, who will cherish him above all else. Finally a safe harbour in a raging sea.

Someone to share his eternity with. A partner. A mate.

This time when Kidd leaned down to kiss soft lips unable to control himself, he was met with no resistance, but eager lips that answered his with a relieved whimper.

THE END


End file.
